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Watching the endless stream of dismal news from Syria, we can feel at a loss at how to help. The truth is that much more can be done to help millions bearing the brunt of the conflict; all that is missing is the political will to do it.

“Countries across the world can take concrete measures to alleviate the suffering of those who have been displaced by the conflict. More than 4.25 million have been displaced inside Syria and two million are refugees abroad, this amounts to nearly a third of the population. There is little political controversy in helping them, no bickering in the United Nations Security Council, no public disagreement between Russia and the USA. So why is it not happening? ” (AL Jazeera)

Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Global Thematic Issues, outlines five concrete steps the international community can take to help those displaced by the Syrian conflict.

First: Borders must stay open to those escaping the conflict. Neighbouring countries have taken very large numbers of refugees but there have been some unfortunate exceptions. Jordan is not letting in, among others, Palestinian refugees who have been resident in Syria for decades. Egypt has turned away Syrians arriving in the country and deported several hundred others.

Second: The international community – particularly EU countries, Gulf countries Russia, China, India, the USA and others that have the economic means – must fully fund the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria. Humanitarian support must be sustained and not a one off contribution; there should be a clear commitment from individual countries and groupings like the G20 to ensure that humanitarian appeals continue to be funded.

Neighbouring countries, in particular Jordan and Lebanon, will need ongoing support to be able to continue hosting large numbers of refugees and providing them with essential services, such schooling and health care. Lebanon is now hosting 759,000 refugees from Syria; one in every six people in the country. Jordan, one of the most water-stressed countries in the world is now home to 525,000 refugees from Syria, a twelfth of the country’s population. Here again, the role of the international community is critical.

Third: Anyone fleeing Syria should be considered in need of international protection. The vast majority of refugees from Syria, including Palestinian refugees, are likely to meet the criteria for refugee status under international law. They should be able to access refugee protection and the benefits afforded by refugee status. Key to this is that refugees from Syria should not be restricted to short residency periods or excluded from family reunification.

Fourth: Refugees from Syria, like all refugees, should not be subject to immigration detention. Refugees from Syria have been detained in various countries including Bulgaria, Egypt and Greece. Immigration detention of refugees is unlawful under international law.

Fifth: European countries, which resettle a relatively small number of refugees, should take vulnerable refugees out of the region, either by offering to resettle them or through humanitarian admission programmes. These must be over and above paltry existing refugee resettlement programmes. And it must be a serious effort of resettling thousands of refugees, not just token numbers. Resettlement and humanitarian admission will only make a small dent in the very large number of refugees hosted by Syria’s neighbours, but it can be a very effective way of assisting those that are most vulnerable.

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Will the new Iranian president’s diplomatic opening survive the onslaught from detractors like Israel, Saudi Arabia and members of the U.S. Congress?

The new Iranian leader’s diplomatic moves have brought hope to those searching for an end to hostility between Iran and the U.S. In the days leading up to the annual gathering of world leaders in New York, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani proclaimed to NBC News that Iran would not seek nuclear weapons under any circumstances and penned a Washington Post op-edin which he declared, “I’m committed to fulfilling my promises to my people, including my pledge to engage in constructive interaction with the world.”

It was all part of Rouhani’s effort to pave the way for a potential new chapter in U.S.-Iranian relations…

Laboratory research pioneered by psychologist Carol Dweck has shown the short-term benefits of praising children for their efforts rather than their inherent traits. Doing so leads children to adopt a so-called “incremental mindset” – seeing ability as malleable and challenges as an opportunity to learn.

Now a new study co-authored by Dweck and led by Elizabeth Gunderson has made the first ever attempt to monitor how parents praise their young children in real-life situations, and to see how their style of praise is related to the children’s mindset five years later.

The researchers observed and recorded 53 individual parents interacting with their children in the home for 90 minutes, whether playing, having a meal or whatever. They did this when the children were aged 14, 26 and 38 months. Five years later, the researchers caught up with the kids and asked them questions about their attitudes and mindset towards ability, challenges and moral goodness.

The key finding was the more parents tended to praise their pre-school age children for effort (known as process praise, as in “good job”), the more likely it was that those children had a “incremental attitude” towards intelligence and morality when they were aged seven to eight…

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Oz taxpayer money now funding the live export of children…

The Australian government has started exporting children and their families to offshore detention facilities. The first four children went to Manus Island, a place notorious for it’s deadly form of malaria. Others will be slated for transfer to Nauru and Manus. The physical and psychological price of detaining these children cannot be calculated. But the dollar price can. According to the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers the estimated cost of housing asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island will be $2.3 billion over four years (more if the number of boat arrivals continue to rise). That amounts to $575,000,000 a year, $1,575,342.46 a day, $65,639.27 per hour, $1093.99 per minute or $18.23 a second.

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There are reasons to celebrate despite continued economic stagnation and growing debt: the culture of resistance in the US is here and it’s having an effect. This week, AlterNet reflects on the second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and the fifth anniversary of the financial collapse…

There are reasons to celebrate despite continued economic stagnation and growing debt: the culture of resistance in the US is here and it’s having an effect. The corporate power that has so blatantly stomped on our rights and whipped Congress to do its bidding is faltering and losing its grip. There are cracks in the pillars of power, and it’s up to us to pry them open and shine light on the lies and corruption that have been used to steal our future. We see a movement that is building momentum.

AlterNet looks back over the events of the past two years and we feel cautiously optimistic. We remember wondering as we watched the Arab Spring bloom and the encampments grow in Spain and state capitals like Madison whether people in the US were ready to rise up and demand more than the crumbs we’ve been convinced to accept for decades…

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“Even as it (Britain) walked out on you and joined the Common Market, you were still looking for your MBEs and your knighthoods, and all the rest of the regalia that comes with it. You would take Australia right back down the time tunnel to the cultural cringe where you have always come from.”

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Tony Abbott has been Prime Minister officially for only a little over a day and already he has:

Banished women from all but one of the senior positions in his Ministry – and made himself Minister for Women;

Shut down the Climate Commission and the Climate Change Authority, ending their roles in informing Australians of the impacts of global warming and the necessary emission reduction targets to address it;

Abolished AusAid, making a mockery of Australia’s commitment to tackling global poverty;

Re-introduced temporary protection visas, which will see refugees sent back to danger faster and is in breach of international law;

At the end of the day, Master Murdoch and Norb Fones really pulled out all the err…the stops…

Und moving forwards….moving forwards with opportunity…opportunity to vwin, eet iz now essential that you do not deviate from my six foondamental rules:…rules of ze propaganda…

1. If you have a plen to put over, keep presenting it incessantly…und systematically und persistently….

2. Avoid argument….never admit there is any “other side;” und in all statements scrupulously avoid arousing reflection or associated ideas, except those which are favorable….

3. In every possible way, connect the idea you wish to put over with the known desires of your audience….zee wishes are the basis of the acceptance of ideas in more cases than zat putreed “logic” is….

4. Make your statements in such language that your audience can repeat them, in thought, without the need of transforming them…

5. use indirect statement, innuendo, and implication. Use direct statement in such a way that the attention of the audience shall be drawn to it sufficiently to take it in, but not sufficiently to reflect upon it.

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The US intelligence agency NSA has been taking advantage of the smartphone boom. It has developed the ability to hack into iPhones, android devices and even the BlackBerry, previously believed to be particularly secure.

Michael Hayden has an interesting story to tell about the iPhone. He and his wife were in an Apple store in Virginia, Hayden, the former head of the United States National Security Agency (NSA), said at a conference in Washington recently. A salesman approached and raved about the iPhone, saying that there were already "400,000 apps" for the device. Hayden, amused, turned to his wife and quietly asked: "This kid doesn't know who I am, does he? Four-hundred-thousand apps means 400,000 possibilities for attacks."

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The British Psychological Society has a fantastic public access research hub, called BPS Research Digest ( http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.au/), that continues to empower the visitor with an extensive array of topical and well researched pieces…here at the interpretOr, we just couldn’t go past this meta analysis on psychotherapy over drugs…extract below…

Kathryn McHugh and her colleagues identified 34 relevant peer-reviewed studies up to August 2011 involving 90,483 people, in which the participants were asked to indicate a straight preference between psychotherapy or drugs. Half the studies involved patients awaiting treatment, the others involved participants who were asked to indicate their preference if they were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. The researchers had hoped to study preferences among patients with a diverse range of diagnoses but they were restricted by the available literature – 65 per cent studies pertained to depression with the remainder mostly involving anxiety disorders.

Overall, 75 per cent of participants stated a preference for psychotherapy over drugs. Stated differently, participants were three times as likely to state that they preferred psychological treatment rather than medication. The preference for therapy remained but was slightly lower (69 per cent) when focusing just on treatment-seeking patients, and when focusing only on studies that looked at depression (70 per cent). Desire for psychotherapy was stronger in studies that involved more women or younger participants.

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September 2013

…Egypt, foreign agendas, unloved liberals, the ballet company dances on; Tunisia suggests how to guarantee freedoms; canErdogan’s power be curbed? Serge Halimi, five years on; where now for the euro? Eastern Europe’s ‘nuclear bloc’; future imperfect forschool textbooks; Peru’s new property bubble; the boy-girls of Saudi Arabia… and more…

Today’s threats from Tony Abbott to axe funding for Perth’s rail projects, slash public service jobs, and rip billions in aid from the world’s poorest people shows people must vote Greens in the Senate to maintain checks and balances.

“In the event of a Coalition Government it is crucial that one party doesn’t get total control of Parliament, and Mr Abbott certainly reminded us of that today with his drastic cuts,” said Greens Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam.

“Today Mr Abbott confirmed he will not provide one cent for rail in Perth. Perth is crying out for better transport infrastructure and the Coalition will cut $500 million in rail funding for Western Australia.

“Make no mistake – Perth’s urban rail was named on Mr Abbott’s hit list revealed today, marked ‘do not proceed’. This from the guy who wants to be known as an ‘infrastructure Prime Minister’.

“It is no wonder the Colin Barnett has tried to keep its Federal funding requests a secret – his Liberal mate Tony Abbott won’t give him a cent.

“Only the Greens have a costed, comprehensive plan to improve public transport in Perth.”

Senator Ludlam said the drastic cuts announced today showed the Coalition could not be trusted with total control of Parliament.

“The extreme cuts announced today are another reminder – people must vote Greens to keep Mr Abbott from controlling the Senate,” said Senator Ludlam.

…While the topic of asylum-seekers has dominated discussions in the lead-up to the country’s federal election, much of the attention by the Labor government and the opposition Liberal-National coalition has focused on “stopping the boats” and thwarting the trade of people smugglers.

But, advocates say, beyond the politics are the people seeking asylum; many of whom have suffered severe trauma and are in desperate need of a safe home….

On the day of the 1992 UK general election, The Sun newspaper ran an “infamous”[37] front page featuring Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, with the headline: ‘If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights’. Kinnock lost and the following day’s headline in The Sun was the triumphalist ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It‘ (sic)